Location

Introducing a new programme – Current Issues in Pensions meets Highlights from the Pensions Conference.

This year we have a collaboration running through the seminars, covering highlights from this year’s Pensions Conference as well as current issues in the pensions sector. Designed to update qualified, newly qualified and non actuaries, it will keep you and your organisations updated within your field.

With a mix of technical and topical opportunities combined we hope to show what is new, engaging and inspiring.

Plenary Sessions will include:

Economic Outlook

View from an Independent Trustee

Macroeconomics of Pension Funds

You can also choose from a range of workshops that were featured in the Pensions Conference 2013.

Just five minutes’ walk from Oxford Circus tube (Central, Victoria and Bakerloo), Bond Street (Jubilee) and a 10 minute walk from Great Portland Street tube (Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan) and Marylebone station.

Location

The PRA’s forthcoming framework for Recovery and Resolution Planning is likely to have an impact on many UK and international insurers. This is an opportunity to contribute to the discussion at an early stage in the framework’s development.

Who should attend?

Senior members of the IFoA working in the insurance sector, particularly those involved in Stress and Scenario Testing and business strategy/planning, working with both UK and international companies.Anyone with a knowledge of the FSB/IAIS proposals. Non-actuaries are welcome to attend.

Location

This session is aimed at showing an unconventional view of the weakness and uncertainty of well accepted financial models and to offer methods and strategies for dealing with them. The discussion focuses the implications for creating new models, as might be done in a Solvency II, ICA+ or Capital Management project.

Who should attend?

This talk is aimed at any actuaries or risk professionals, especially those that find the complexity or cost of models to be daunting. Assumed is at least a nodding acquaintance with financial models (e.g. Black-Scholes options pricing, CAPM), statistical inference, and Solvency II.

Location

Members are invited to attend a technical event at the Novotel Century Hong Kong. David Hare, the President of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries will give a presentation on Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA). This presentation should be of interest to all practice areas as insurance companies around the globe are going to comply with risk based capital requirements and ORSA is the core of this.

Drinks and canapes will be served and the event and networking opportunities will take place from 19:00 until 20:30

Location

Nigel looks at the job prospects for new actuaries in the next few years, where their careers might develop, and what employers are looking for in recruits. Nigel will also explain why he is still enthusiastic about his career choice 40 years after he first made it.

Nigel Masters

Nigel Masters has spent most of his working life in the life insurance industry. He specialises in merger and acquisi-tion along with risk management and financial reporting. In more recent years, he has worked as a senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers and in 2006 he joined Zurich as chief actuary of their global life business. He left this role to become the President of the Institute of Actuaries (2008-2010) and it was under his leadership that the Institute merged with the Scottish Faculty of Actuaries. In the last year he has also become a non executive direc-tor at two insurers, Wesleyan and Engage Mutual, and has a one day a week consultancy with Grant Thornton.

Location

Health systems are a classic example of a complex system which no-one can hope to fully understand. Decisions are rarely made based on good analysis and following the discipline of the actuarial control cycle, but are instead shaped by political priorities, partial hypotheses and downright myth. Behavioural economics and psychology give a greater insight into why health systems behave as they do than maths and statistics. In addition, all health systems believe they have unique problems, which require local solutions and are resistant to adopting best practices from elsewhere.

So what can actuaries possibly hope to add to the debate?

This lecture will aim to show the practical issues health actuaries deal with on a day to day basis and how they can shed light into some of the darker corners of health systems' decision-making process. There is no perfect health system and the compromises that each system makes are a reflection of the value judgements and social policy priorities of its stakeholders. The actuary's job is to quantify the impact of those decisions and help policymakers understand the potential consequences of their actions to decide where to deploy the necessary trade-offs.

Jo Buckle

Joanne Buckle FIA, FSA, MAAA is Principal and Consulting Actuary and leads the London health practice of Milliman. She has over 15 years of experience in health markets throughout the world and her work includes pricing and reserving for health insurance, as well as benchmarking the efficiency of health systems and looking at the effect of alternative reimbursement models for hospitals and doctors. She has worked on consulting projects for governments, insurers, providers, pharmaceutical companies and NGOs.

Location

Come and hear from a variety of experts on social housing: covering shared ownership bonds, social policy issues and implications for this asset class, and an investor in social housing.

Who should attend?

This event will be of interest to actuaries who are interested in social housing as an asset class, both from a return perspective and for matching long dated real liabilities. It will also provide insight into some of the social policy issues and long term societal trends affecting investment performance and risk.

Location

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries would like to present a masterclass in Manchester.

These 2 hour sessions are for anyone wanting to develop their non-technical and business skills. As well as gain valuable CPD. They are designed especially for actuaries by experts in their field to help you achieve success in all areas of business. Members of the Institute and Faculty of actuaries will find these events a useful contribution to their CPD and development needs.

When you introduce yourself as an actuary at a formal networking event how do people react? Do you like going to formal networking events? Do you feel comfortable?

This interactive workshop is designed to help you feel comfortable networking, to enjoy networking and to help you realise that it is something that is not just done at formal networking meetings with trays of nibbles but something you should be doing every day and in every interaction you have.

The life blood of any business is its customers. It can be really tough to find new customers, to grow your business and to find new opportunities to work on. Every organisation must sell what it does or risk dying. In this interactive workshop we will look at how you can find new opportunities, grow your business, position yourselves as the expert in certain areas, use educational marketing to penetrate new markets and much more.

Location

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries would like to present a masterclass in Scotland.

These 2 hour sessions are for anyone wanting to develop their non-technical and business skills. As well as gain valuable CPD. Its is designed especially for actuaries by experts in their field to help you achieve success in all areas of business. Members of the Institute and Faculty of actuaries will find this events a useful contribution to their CPD and development needs.

This session is designed to give you the confidence to speak up in meetings and with senior colleagues and clients. To build your profile and to build stronger internal and client relationships you need to find your voice communicating your point powerfully, we will help you to:

• The cost of not speaking up – building your own brand and consequences of not speaking up

• The very un-British act of bragging - If you don’t sing your praises who will?

• Building confidence

• Be heard in meetings - getting your point across

• Connecting and communicating with everyone from the most junior to the most senior

• Building stronger relationships through communication (strong relationships with the partner, visible with the client team) - the only person that is going to raise your profile is you

The life blood of any business is its customers. It can be really tough to find new customers, to grow your business and to find new opportunities to work on. Every organisation must sell what it does or risk dying. In this interactive workshop we will look at how you can find new opportunities, grow your business, position yourselves as the expert in certain areas, use educational marketing to penetrate new markets and much more.

Location

SPECIAL OFFER: Book all 5 sessions in this series and get 1 session free! Why wait? Get this offer now Book before Tuesday 3 September.

Speaker:Chris Matthews - Sutherlands

Masterclass description:

For many people, winning business has an element of mysterious alchemy to it, when in fact it is an utterly straightforward matter that virtually everybody can master. This overview covers the entire matter and includes the process to follow; the skills to master; the principles that apply throughout.

The session includes:

The immutable principles of selling professional services;

A 4-part process to follow from start to finish;

An overview of the most important skills to master;

A walk-through from start to finish of what an outstanding "contact to contract" engagement looks like.

Book your place today! You can, when booking, select to attend all 5 masterclass sessions for the price of 4. Book before Tuesday 3 September and receive your discounted price:

This is an opportunity to meet actuaries with an interest in resource and environment issues, and to contribute to the development of the strategy of the Resource and Environment Board, recently launched by the IFoA. Resource constraints and environmental change are affecting all practice areas and starting to create new areas of work, for example in the implications of climate change for investors and insurers, and in energy modelling.

Discussion in groups will include potential research areas, cross practice initiatives, new areas of work, education and external engagement, followed by networking over drinks. A briefing document will be available to delegates beforehand.

Who should attend?

This event is intended for actuaries in all practice areas interested in the implications of resource constraints and environmental change, and how the IFoA should respond.

Ling Guan is the Head of Financial Regulation Division at the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. Ling graduated in 2000 from Beijing University with a degree in Economic Mathematics, and he joined the China Insurance Regulatory Commission in the same year. Ling became a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) in 2003 and a Fellow of the China Actuary Association (FCAA) in 2005.

James Orr is the Chief Actuary for General Insurance at the Prudential Regulation Authority, part of the Bank of England Group. He is also the Head of Department for the General Insurance Risk Specialists within the PRA. James’ department is focussed on reviewing firms’ capital assessments under ICAS and the Solvency II Internal Model regime, as well as the adequacy of reserves and reserving processes. His career has included working for Lloyd’s of London, time as a GI consultant, and five years with the PRA’s predecessor organisation, the Financial Services Authority.

Location

On Monday 16 December at 18.15 the annual Carol Service for Actuaries takes place at St Lawrence Jewry - right by the Guildhall in the City of London.

It's arranged as always by The Worshipful Company of Actuaries and is OPEN TO ALL actuaries, their families and friends. It's a traditional carol service with the chance to sing your hearts out, listen to readings or just enjoy a bit of festive spirit. Just come along - no need to book!

After the service there will be a buffet supper followed by communal carol singing a short walk away at Armourers’ Hall, in Coleman Street. The cost of the supper is £70 per head (with a special price of £35 for children of 12 and under). Again, the supper is OPEN TO ALL.

A £50 booking fee will be added to all bookings on and after the 29 December 2013.Any cancellations made before 29 December are entitled to a refund minus 20% administration fee. Any cancellations made after 29 December will not receive a refund. Alternatively, send a colleague in your place.

Group discounts are available for groups of 6 or more attending from the same company. Please contact Hannah Watson if you have any questions.